Recurring silly comment about Apocalypse World and similar RPGs

[Xamnam]

I appreciate the response.

Check out what I've bolded above. I think maybe (could be wrong) what is happening here is at the intersection of (a) what your sense of table time is devoted to in these games in particular + (b) how that doesn't jive with (perhaps) what your table time is devoted to in your own home games?

So for instance, in these games? Table time is devoted damn near exclusively to situation-framing, player's cognitive loop (orienting to the situation and then processing their decision tree and then landing on a chosen action), consequence-resolution and situation-reframing, follow-on conflicts, and any systemitized upkeep/downtime or management of prompts.

So the GM in these games isn't talking less on the whole than in trad games. Its just that the things they're saying exclude trad concepts that find a lot of table time like exposition dumps, breadcrumb laying, reveals, heavy on the performative theatrics, significant focus on ephemera (like maps or handouts), and conflict-neutral freeplay (although some games have a hair of this...but that freeplay is going to be right on the heels of conflict or chasing some new, follow-on conflict). So same amount of talking for GMs in these games...its just that the words/conversation doesn't entail the italicized stuff. Its all basically (a) aggressing the PCs via principled application of system and (b) managing your systemitized duties and the game engine's particulars (like structured play loops and system prompts).

I think you've hit on it well, again with the bolded in particular. On the one hand, my players and I do just enjoy that intrinsically, and going along with world/scene description (which can have some overlap with framing, but not inherently), it lets us all cohesively imagine and embody ourselves better.

However, that time, which would be momentumless padding in a more conflict-driven game, is also what I feel like gives my brain the time and space to realize escalations that do hound on the dramatic question of the scene or the players. When there is little separating out having to make GM moves, my brain starts to fry, and I feel like my ability to make the consequences/increased pressure fully relevant to what is going on diminishes rapidly. Especially in combination with: Not wanting to leave dead air fighting against making sure my reactions do fit in the framework of the established GM moves. Pacing, both in direct response and overall scenic development, is the pressure point.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'll answer your last question first. Someone posted that they had a hard time getting answers about PBtA games that lacked a certain "holier than thou" and perhaps elitist attitude (not their exact words). I thought they had a point and posted to support them, then got drawn in when the playstyle's defenders leapt into the fray. Since I like debate and playing devil's advocate, I stuck around.

Okay... then expect any claims you make to potentially be argued. You like debate... then do so. Don't say that other people like to take things personally, and dodge backing up your claim.

Back it up. What is it about the games that makes you claim the fiction they produce lacks verisimilitude? We have no examples of play from you that show that. We have several from @pemerton that counter it. My own experience with these games would also counter it.

I'll also make a claim... the fiction produced by D&D tends to be very shallow compared to that produced by games like Blades in the Dark and Stonetop. D&D play lacks the breadth of experience and outcomes that these games allow.

If you were to challenge this claim, I would be able to make arguments and provide actual examples of play that would support my claim.

Regarding your request for more detail on my PBtA experiences, which I note you seem to doubt (is it that hard to accept other people might not enjoy what you enjoy?),

I don't necessarily doubt that you've tried these games. I doubt that the amount of time you've put in, and likely the effort based on your preconceived idea about them, is sufficient to have a very accurate view of the games.

And no, it's not hard to accept that people may not enjoy what I enjoy. I have no issue at all with anyone not liking a game I like, and I expect the same in return. But what you don't see me do is make claims about games I have little to no experience with. I don't know jack about FATE... guess what I don't do? I have experience with GURPS that amounts to the same amount of experience you have with PbtA games. Guess how often I comment on GURPS games?

I will admit all three were pretty brief. I enjoyed Monster of the Week solely because I like the genre a lot (big fan of the stories it's inspired by) and I like my friends. Never liked the system. I played an Antiquarian (I think), or in any case the Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer archetype, my favorite role in most stories. Free roleplay as this character was far more fun to me than interacting with the system. I would play again, but only because I liked my character, the genre, and my companions. System had nothing to do with the fun I had.

The other two experiences were longer ago, with different people. I like the post-apocalyptic genre quite a bit (that's why I joined that group in the first place), but to my and some other player's perspectives, the system kept getting in the way. People would keep their eyes glued to their playbooks, looking for moves to make and ways to get mechanical advantage. I left after three sessions and decided to watch the original Clash of the Titans on cable instead (my roommate was the GM so we were playing in the garage).

My Dungeon World experience was even briefer (I think just one session), but much the same. It had the added drawback of running up against my expectations as a decades-long D&D player, and unlearning those lessons wasn't worth playing a game in the same genre I'm comfortable with in another style. I think I played a fighter-type there.

So you think your assumptions based on the stated amount of experience should really hold water? I mean, you may have enough of a hunch from that amount of play to be like "this game is not for me", but beyond that, do you really expect that your claims are likely to be that accurate?

Because my claim is subjective. As I said above, I'm sure @pemerton 's games are quite plausible for them and their players. But they wouldn't be for me, because that systems' assumptions are too counter to my preference to see the fiction created as having the verisimilitude I want out of fantasy gaming. It's nothing against them or their style of play.

So perhaps say something like "I'm not confident in my ability to use this game system to create plausible fiction" rather than "this game is not likely to produce plausible fiction". Place the blame, such as it is, with the appropriate party.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

What about natural cave systems? Re-purposed tombs or catacombs? Abandoned fortifications? @Lanefan Mentioned some of this stuff. The point is that not every dungeon you encounter was purpose-built by its current resident.

Right, so the conclusion then is that you can justify ANY possible dungeon through an appeal to essentially arbitrary fiction which no logical argument can dispute. So why is your dungeon filled with verisimilitude and mine is implausible?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Okay... then expect any claims you make to potentially be argued. You like debate... then do so. Don't say that other people like to take things personally, and dodge backing up your claim.

Back it up. What is it about the games that makes you claim the fiction they produce lacks verisimilitude? We have no examples of play from you that show that. We have several from @pemerton that counter it. My own experience with these games would also counter it.

I'll also make a claim... the fiction produced by D&D tends to be very shallow compared to that produced by games like Blades in the Dark and Stonetop. D&D play lacks the breadth of experience and outcomes that these games allow.

If you were to challenge this claim, I would be able to make arguments and provide actual examples of play that would support my claim.



I don't necessarily doubt that you've tried these games. I doubt that the amount of time you've put in, and likely the effort based on your preconceived idea about them, is sufficient to have a very accurate view of the games.

And no, it's not hard to accept that people may not enjoy what I enjoy. I have no issue at all with anyone not liking a game I like, and I expect the same in return. But what you don't see me do is make claims about games I have little to no experience with. I don't know jack about FATE... guess what I don't do? I have experience with GURPS that amounts to the same amount of experience you have with PbtA games. Guess how often I comment on GURPS games?



So you think your assumptions based on the stated amount of experience should really hold water? I mean, you may have enough of a hunch from that amount of play to be like "this game is not for me", but beyond that, do you really expect that your claims are likely to be that accurate?



So perhaps say something like "I'm not confident in my ability to use this game system to create plausible fiction" rather than "this game is not likely to produce plausible fiction". Place the blame, such as it is, with the appropriate party.

GURPS players don't spend a lot of time championing their preferences onto the larger gaming community. They just play GURPS. This thread (and the other one @pemerton created recently) are specifically preemptive strikes against perceived attacks of misrepresentation against narrative games by the trad community. He wasn't responding to any particular post. He was making an active complaint. Then he made the same complaint regarding a more specific (but very similar in principle) game.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

We are nearly opposite in the things we want out of gaming, as the things you're not interested in I very much am. This is why all your actual play posts aren't going to convince me. We don't want the same things out of RPGs.

So Ron Edwards was right, there are different agendas.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Right, so the conclusion then is that you can justify ANY possible dungeon through an appeal to essentially arbitrary fiction which no logical argument can dispute. So why is your dungeon filled with verisimilitude and mine is implausible?

I don't see the fiction as arbitrary. You do. That's the difference.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So Ron Edwards was right, there are different agendas.

In principle, yeah. Still don't like the specific categories he went with, or his own agenda on making the system in the first place.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So Ron Edwards was right, there are different agendas.

I don’t think that bit was ever controversial.

 

[clearstream]

After the subject came up in chat with some friends, I realized that I'm of three minds on the subject of "AW is GMing with training wheels" refrain.

I know the folks that employ it are nearly exclusively using it as an epithet to diminish the game. But at the same time I’m like “uhhh...yeah, I’ll take some training wheels! Make my life easier thank you!”

It’s the LAWL TRAINING WHEELS ARE FOR WHEENIES AND PUNKS + this game does a lot of work to ensure you don’t eff up play (get into a bike wreck) dichotomy.

Kinda makes me want to pull a “turn their move back on them” GM move!

However, while working through those thoughts, I realized I'm of a third mind. GMing AW and kindred is quite hard…but just in a different way than GMing a trad game; the demands of in-situ cognitive agility and of integrating multiple axes of information at all times in your framing and consequences is extreme in AW and kindred and relatively relaxed in trad GMing (because the difficulties of trad GMing lie elsewhere; in prep, in skillful exposition dumps, in deftness/finesse of telegraphing and prompting). So accepting the “training wheels refrain” surrenders clarity on the core issue at hand; difficulty of GMing.

Your interesting thoughts here made me reflect on my own impressions of where difficulty lies in GMing

Sandboxes - for me are very in the moment - "in-situ cognitive agility and of integrating multiple axes of information at all times in your framing and consequences is extreme". Runequest can be played like this.​

Freeform / FKR - also very in the moment and probably the most difficult GMing to sustain over an extended campaign - takes an acute sense of what the world is like, accurate sensitivity to who player characters are and what they care about, ruthlessness (it's all on you, no fallback to "the dice made me do it") and sincerity (you have to mean it), strong commitments on how you resolve what and why. For extra difficulty, formulate your own ultra-light principles and/or rules.​

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Storyline - I think you summarise quite well, although I've moved away from labelling "trad" as that seems to bucket a number of distinct play styles; I also notice a vector of high difficulty around exploiting prep to reveal implied stories. Call of Cthulhu can really show off this (e.g. Masks of Nyarlathotep)​

Storygames - I find it matters whether the players at the table understand the paradigm, so it's not solely down to GM, although I agree that "in-situ cognitive agility and of integrating multiple axes of information at all times in your framing and consequences is extreme". Getting Avatar conflicts just right requires a lot of skill, as one example.​

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Games about a subject - requires deep knowledge of subject, down to systemic appreciation (not just what, but why and how; not just "it's like this" but "it goes like this because of these factors, and knowing this you can take it to new places..."), and the ability to breath life into it... making immersion effortless, depending on subject, can be extremely technical and especially demanding on memory. For some reason games set in Asian history or analogies thereof, like Bushido or L5R often exemplify this.​

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"Clockwork" games - this is my label for games that rachet shared assets fueled by currencies paid out from scenes, with background cycles to exploit and mitigate. At any moment there's a lot in flight! So again - "in-situ cognitive agility and of integrating multiple axes of information at all times in your framing and consequences is extreme" OR a group can take it slower and really amplify the rigour and complexity. Blades in the Dark has an element of this (in the extended crew game.)​

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Map and key - the set up takes high rules-knowledge and creativity, and for the in-the-moment playing out of the set up (particularly if ramifications will ripple across map) is extremely demanding, because it's typically four fierce minds to one GM! I feel like Dolmenwood could be an example of high-end play of this sort. Although there are countless great examples.​

There are probably yet more distinct styles of play and syntheses between them, so leaving the list there... I strongly agree with your sense that differing styles of play emphasise different talents, and every style of play is open-ended in terms of difficulty. The can absorb as much talent as GM can invest in them. I'm not in love with the "training wheels" analogy, but a central goal of design is accessibility: can players access the crucial game play? So your observations resonate.

 

[clearstream]

I don’t think that bit was ever controversial.

Only to Baker, in 2015, perhaps...